Philippe Starck on what motivates him creatively

Sex yes, drugs and rock 'n' roll, no

It takes a monk's existence to create like Philippe Starck.

Photograph by: Handout photo
, Yoo

In a series of columns that will rotate with Jade Jagger and Kelly Hoppen each month, seminal designer Philippe Starck discusses creativity.

Creativity is almost a mortal sickness. It's not easy to be happy and creative because with creativity comes great anxiety, effort and desire for love. To be creative, you have to be curious, generous and want to try to understand. People often ask me: "How do you remain creative?" The secret is still to be loved and to want to be loved.

The other important ingredient is to want to serve. The only way to deserve to exist is to serve. For me, every job is to serve my community, my society, my civilization. The more service I give, the more I shall be proud of myself and, perhaps, when I die, I'll think I was not so useless.

What makes people creative? For me, it helps to live a sort of modern monk's life. I go early to bed and wake up a little earlier than others because the peak - the hormonal peak of creativity - is around seven o'clock in the morning. To be creative, you can't be intoxicated by drugs or alcohol. You cannot be intoxicated by poison coming from industrial food. You have to go to the gym and have a lot of sex (although not necessarily in that order).

You also need to live outside mainstream thinking. If you go out every night for dinner or to a cocktail party, where you speak with everybody, you cannot create because you end up just repeating what people tell you. You get very comfortable and very unoriginal. The only way to create, the recipe for creativity, is to be alone. In front of a blank sheet of paper or your computer in the middle of nowhere. It's the best way to find only your ideas, your intuition.

People often ask what inspires me. The answer is nothing. Nothing inspires me directly. I live outside of everything. That means I have no direct information. My inspiration comes from the existence of my life. I try to understand my mistakes. I try to understand how I can avoid making them in future.

What motivates me? Some think it must be money. But no. I hate money. I hate being obliged to work a lot, to make a lot of money. I avoid thinking about money. That is why I earn a lot in order not to have to count it. Intellectual satisfaction motivates me more. I feel truly good when I have finished a project or model, and done my job well.

Sex motivates me, too. It is clearly part of the game. It's not that you are creative because you have good sex. Nor is the contrary true. Perhaps some people want to be creatively successful in order to have more sex. But not in my case because I am stupidly faithful to my wife, Jasmine.

If you are truly creative, it's not possible to stop creating, even for a moment. Even though sometimes I wish I could. It's a continuous process. You are born with it. For me, it began by being horribly bored when I was young. There was nothing more boring than my youth. That was a very good starter for imagination. Since then, my imagination has never stopped.

Not stopping is not fun because it gets in the way of you living your life. I have only the projects I am working on. Subconsciously, I work on many projects at the same time in my head. There is no escape. Even when bad things happen around me, like death, I carry on creating. In bad times, I feel ashamed that I can get up and start creating, almost like a machine.

I never relax. I am tense. I had a massage the other day and the guy said: "It is not possible. This guy is made of concrete and steel. His body is so hard inside, it's like steel cord." But I love to drive my boat. I love to drive my motorcycle. I love to cook. Definitely sex is part of my life. And now I have a six-month old daughter, called Justice. She helps me to relax.

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